BWI: India in Top Three Countries Worldwide for Global Broadband Growth

Press release from Business Wire India
Source: Convergence India 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011 02:32 PM IST (09:02 AM GMT)
Editors: General: Consumer interest; Business: Advertising, PR & marketing, Business services, Information technology; Technology
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India in Top Three Countries Worldwide for Global Broadband Growth
Broadband Forum predicts top ten position is coming close

New Delhi, Delhi, India, Friday, March 25, 2011 -- (Business Wire India) -- India's phenomenal growth in broadband in 2010 -second only to China and the United States - is leading towards the country soon becoming one of the top ten users of broadband in the world. That was the message delivered yesterday at Convergence India by Broadband Forum Chief Executive Officer Robin Mersh as the Forum staged its first ever news conference in India.

India added more than 2.5 million new lines of broadband last year and now stands at No13 in the world - having been barely in the top 50 of broadband countries just six years ago.

"There has been tremendous and consistent growth in broadband across India in recent years, yet this is just the tip of the iceberg," said Mr. Mersh. "Both fixed and wireless broadband options abound, and the Broadband Forum is doing all it can to help India's providers engineer smarter and faster networks."

Looking at the global picture, international IPTV subscription had a record 34.6% growth in 2010 according to the figures prepared by Point Topic (http://www.point-topic.com) and announced today by the Broadband Forum. 2010 was also a landmark year for broadband subscriptions - following the milestone half billion lines achieved in July 2010, subscriber figures continued to climb steadily and ended the year at 523,066,022 - a net addition of over 55 million lines during the year. With more and more devices coming online and broadband growing at such a steady rate, the timing could not be better for the release of BroadbandSuite 4.0, the IPv6 Toolkit of the Broadband Forum.

The final quarter of 2010 followed a similar pattern to the rest of the year in terms of percentage growth in broadband subscribers, reflecting a steady and sustained increase which was broadly in line with the previous two years. Asia is set to overtake Europe during 2011 with China still dominating the rankings both for total subscribers and net additions, as well as in percentage growth terms.

Meanwhile by the end of 2010 the total number of IPTV subscribers had reached almost 45.4 million, representing over 11.5 million new subscribers over the year and an annual increase of 34.6%. The fourth quarter was the strongest quarter for IPTV growth, adding more than 3.4 million new subscribers and accounting for 8% of the total growth.

With great broadband commercial success comes real world logistical problems - the surge of new devices coming online will soon exhaust the IPv4 address pool. To address this looming problem, the Broadband Forum has been focusing its resources to ensure specifications are in place for a smooth integration of the new Internet protocol, IPv6 into network and device management around the world.

The BroadbandSuiteT 4.0 IPv6 Toolkit defines the network support of IPv6 from core to user, brings IPv6 to all TR-101 based network deployments, allows remote management of IPv6 devices, is scalable to address trillions of devices, and future enhancements have the potential to enrich the user experience (supporting secure, mobile and nomadic applications) and enable the proliferation of connected user devices.

"Most importantly, this IPv6 toolkit will help service providers reduce the impact of IPv4 protocol exhaustion on their services today while ensuring the growth of new users, devices and applications continues unhampered," added Mr Mersh.

To view the photograph, please click on the link given below:

"Mr Robin Mersh, CEO BroadBand Forum speaking in India for the first time @ the 19th Convergence India 2011 Expo"
For picture(s)/data to illustrate this release click below:

http://www.BusinessWireIndia.com/attachments/1(66).jpg
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CONTACT DETAILS
Ms. Hena Ahmad, Convergence India 2011, +91 (11) 42795168/ +91 9999600622, henaa@eigroup.in

KEYWORDS
CONSUMER, MARKETING, BUSINESS SERVICES, IT, TECHNOLOGY

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